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The Silly Season Begins
by Les Robbins
For those of you who read my column on a regular basis please take the time to read the on-line version of the Beachcomber as there is an article that I wrote on the 24th that deals with a very brutal pit bull dog attack wherein my dog and another in my neighborhood were the victims of two marauding pit bulls two weeks ago. Hopefully you will never find yourself involved in anything as horrific as this experience.
Well the United States Supreme Court, last week, handed down a decision on a 5-4 vote that may go down in the history books as being on a par with the Dred Scott decision of some 150 years ago. It seems that the conservative majority of this court — on a very politically partisan vote — has decided that corporations have 1st Amendment rights equal to those of the citizenry of this country. By granting big business the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money in political campaigns they have completely changed the political game.
There is no differentiation in this decision between corporations that are American owned or foreign owned, and I think that we all know that no citizen, or group of citizens, can ever expect to compete with the wealth of the major corporations of the world. To put this in perspective I remember just a half dozen years ago wherein several major insurance companies were ordered by the federal courts to pay a multi-billion dollar fine for what was in effect a racketeering violation. In spite of the huge fines that they paid they still posted multi-billion dollar profits that same year.
There are many scholars who feel, like me, that the potential of this decision to change the political landscape is staggering. It may not be long before there won’t be any democrats, republicans, independents, etc. just candidates who will be referred to as the Exxon Candidate, or the Aetna candidate, or the Wal-Mart candidate.
I have many friends who work in the business of political consulting and every single one of them is in agreement that this has the potential ability to absolutely destroy the voice and the resulting political impact of the average person like nothing ever before seen in the world of politics. Hopefully Congress, in a bipartisan manner, can come up with some legislative fixes to what is clearly the worst Supreme Court decision in 150 years. This is a huge blow to the already reeling middle class in this country.
Well it certainly looks like the political battle ground has been set in Long Beach for this spring’s elections. All odd numbered city council districts are up for election as well as the mayor, city attorney, city prosecutor, and city auditor. The only office that has no opposition is the city auditor wherein Laura Doud has no opponent. Congratulations to her in that I think that she has done an excellent job and is being rewarded for that performance.
In spite of term limits we have two termed out city council incumbents, Tonia Uranga, 7th District, and Val Lerch, 9th District. I expect these races to be very interesting.
First District Councilman Robert Garcia, who just ran successfully in a special election, will seek re-election and Third District Councilman Gary DeLong will also run for re-election facing two opponents who will make him work very hard to keep his seat. Fifth District Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske has one opponent, which has to be making her smile.
Because the write-in law was changed after the last election it is now much easier for a write in to win. If they are successful in forcing a run off due to no candidate getting 50% plus 1 vote, their names can appear on the run-off ballot. That is the way it should have been all along. I expect run-off elections in Districts 3, 7, and possibly 9, but I expect that the candidates in Districts 1 and 5 to win easily.
The race for city attorney could be a fascinating one but when the dust settles I expect that Bob Shannon will be victorious, and the race to succeed the current city prosecutor is just not predictable. Oh, and last but certainly not least, Mayor Bob Foster has an opponent but his re-election is as predictable as tomorrow morning’s sunrise.
All in all, as my former colleague on the council Jeff Kellogg used to say, “Let the silly season begin.”
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